A regional treasure can be ours again

Alonzo Horton would be both proud and dismayed if he could see what has become of the 960 acres of downtown San Diego real estate he purchased in the late 1860s.

His dream of a humming, vibrant urban core that serves as the civic and cultural heart of the region has, for the most part, come true. There’s a thriving retail and historic district, a strong cultural heritage, tourism industry and inviting, eclectic and character-rich neighborhoods. But there’s also the historic but neglected park bearing his name that has become the poster child for downtown’s unfulfilled potential.

Horton Plaza, at Fourth Avenue and Broadway, adjacent to the Horton Plaza shopping center, has become uninviting and unbecoming of a downtown park in a modern American city. It is indeed good news that a visionary plan has finally surfaced and was approved by the City Council this week to restore the park to the regional treasure it once was.

It was 144 years ago that Horton marched into an auction house and bid 33 cents an acre for a portion of the land that today comprises our downtown. Rampant speculation and investment followed.

By the 1870s, he had donated a small park called Horton Park, which was built in front of the Horton House Hotel at Fourth Avenue and Broadway. It quickly became a civic jewel, drawing thousands from around the region for celebrations, speeches by U.S. presidents and other dignitaries and all manner of public events.

But by 1970, downtown was a husk of its former self and the grand park was reduced to a glorified bus stop.

In 1972, the City Council showed leadership by approving an urban plan that had as its centerpiece a redevelopment district. This allowed the city to reinvest a greater portion of property taxes in downtown and leverage public-private partnerships to rebuild its urban center.

Ernest W. Hahn, known for building suburban shopping centers such as Fashion Valley and Parkway Plaza, received approval in 1974 to build a new mall in the heart of the redevelopment zone. It was a bold move for both Hahn and the city, choosing to build in a neglected and largely abandoned downtown where hardly anybody lived and few people visited who were not interested in massage parlors and peep shows.

As history shows, the creation of the historic Gaslamp District combined with the opening of Horton Plaza Shopping Center proved to be the catalyst for a renaissance that roared through the 1990s and early 2000s like an economic freight train.

Unfortunately, the once-treasured park has again been allowed to slip into decline. Well-intentioned efforts to make it less appealing to the homeless have only succeeded in keeping everyone else away. Under the newly approved plan, Westfield, the owner of the shopping center, and the Centre City Development Corp., the city’s downtown redevelopment arm, have agreed to restore the Horton Plaza park to its early 1900s look and build a new civic gathering space next to it on the site of the former Robinson’s-May/Planet Hollywood building.